Disappointing! (Members Only - Leonie Fox)

Member Name: burtybookworm

Product:	Members Only - Leonie Fox
Date:	21/03/09 (198 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertaining to a point

Disadvantages: plots not followed through, pointless and outlandish storylines

Cindy, Laura, Keeley and Marianne are four girls who live the life of luxury and are members of St Benedicts; an exclusive country club and spa where anyone who is anyone goes. In fact, anything goes when it comes to the club too - discretion is maintained by all members of staff and the millionaires are able to induldge their wildest fantasies, buy drugs and pretty much do anything their heart desires under the protection of their expensive membership.

Members Only follows the lives of these four girls - Cindy has been asked to renovate a room in the Solomons home but is caught between a very public divorce battle, Laura is struggling with post natal depression, Keeley is hoping her footballer boyfriend is about to take the next step with her and Marianne is determined to seduce the new local Vicar.


My Thoughts
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Despite the back of this book saying it is about these four girls, I found that there were other characters that took the lead which surprised me slightly. Amber Solomon is a rich woman, so totally devoted to her husband that she decides to have plastic surgery to change her whole face to match his ideal woman. However, she catches him in bed with the housekeeper at the beginning of the book. For most of the book, this is the main focus and this was more interesting than the other girls stories by far. At times the author goes overboard with the outrageous revenge plots that Amber has - and the retaliation tactics that Mr Solomon concots, but it did make for entertaining reading.

The other main story was of Lauras post natal depression. Once I started reading Lauras story, I realised that this book was the second in a series - a briefly explained dark past is hinted at. This was slightly annoying as I couldn't quite work out what happened and whether it had any bearing on the present story so I felt like I was only getting half of what I was supposed to! However, Lauras character was one that I empathised with the most; to me she felt the most down to earth, I can imagine women all over the country having similar feelings after giving birth. She was also showed much more compassion and was much warmer than the other characters in the book.

There were, of course, the odd sexy scenes - but to be honest these were a bit weird and unnecessary rather than being at all sexy. Unlike other books in this genre, these scenes seemed rather forced, there is a swingers party and a whole plot line of Lauras golfer husband having an affair with an up and coming American golfer which goes horribly wrong. Neither of these plots really added anything to the storylines over all and in fact, I found that most of the storylines drifted off without any kind of conclusion (apart from Lauras.)

Overall, it was just a very disappointing read. I needed something light hearted and absorbing to take my mind of a very tough couple of weeks, but instead I found myself frustrated and annoyed at the silly characters and ridiculous plot lines. Im not sure what the original book in this series is like, but I would definitely avoid this one.

Summary: Don't bother with this one